As the number of cases of Covid-19 increase in San Antonio and hospitals become more crowded, hospitals restrict their visitors to reduce the risk of transmission, This is difficult on patients and families. It’s bad enough to be sick, but to be separated from your support system compounds the problem. All local hospitals are doing this, but the following is the Methodist Systems policy:
Modification of MHS Visitor Guidelines Effective Tuesday, 6/23 at 0700, MHS is modifying our visitor guidelines as summarized below. This is in alignment with all other healthcare systems in San Antonio which are implementing similar modified visitor guidelines. Procedural or elective surgery patients (inpatient or outpatient) may have 1 designated adult visitor throughout the duration of the procedure and during the discharge process. If the patient is admitted (or an inpatient) following the procedure, the visitor must leave the campus.
Emergency department patients may have 1 designated adult visitor throughout the outpatient visit and during the discharge process. Once a decision is made to admit the patient, the visitor must leave the campus at the time of the admit decision.
Inpatient visitation is not permitted.
Exceptions to visitation guidelines are as follows and should be escalated to facility leadership for final decisions:
o The patient is at end of life
o The patient is considered to meet the criteria for a vulnerable population
o Family presence promotes the patient’s well-being and/or care
o Family/visitor is departing for military deployment
o Laboring mothers or pediatric/NICU patients
Antibody testing: A group of experts from the federal government, industry, and academia have published their recommendations on antibody testing for SARS-CoV-2. The group called for additional research into whether the presence of antibodies protects against reinfection and stressed that, for now, antibody tests “should not be used as a stand-alone tool to make decisions about personal safety related to SARS-CoV-2 exposure. “Serological assays can detect antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19;
however, these assays are not designed to diagnose or rule-out active infection.
Highlights include a statement that antibody testing should not be used as the sole basis for diagnosis:
“Serological assays can detect antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19;
however, these assays are not designed to diagnose or rule-out active infection.”
Also, it takes days (12 on average) for antibodies to become detectable:
A recent analysis
(Huang et al., 2020) of more than 300 peer-reviewed articles showed that: 1) median time to
detection was similar across different antibodies for SARS-CoV-1 (12.0 days; IQR 8.0-15.2
days)
https://www.cell.com/action/showPdf?pii=S1074-7613(20)30267-3
